Advantages, Challenges, and New Directions

Eunkyong Lee Yook and Wendy Atkins-Sayre

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Communication Centers and Oral Communication Programs in Higher Education, edited by Eunkyong L. Yook and Wendy Atkins-Sayre, is a collection that examines the centers that support communication departments or across-the-curriculum programs as higher education focuses more attention on the communication field. The authors in this text address theoretical issues covering topics such as the importance of communication centers to higher education, the effects of communication centers on retention, critical thinking in the center, ethics, and more. These essays also explore ideas about center’s set-up and use of space, staff training, technology applications, and campus advertising and outreach. Communication Centers organizes cutting-edge knowledge of the theory and empirical research so as to serve practical use to peer tutors and directors, those who are new to the study of communication centers and to those who are seasoned experts. Furthermore, this collection introduces administrators and those interested in higher education to the potential value of communication centers to higher education. « lessmore »

Esther Lee Yook is Speaking Center Director and faculty of communication at the University of Mary Washington.

Wendy Atkins-Sayreis assistant professor of communication studies and Speaking Center Director at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Part 1. Benefits to Higher EducationChapter 1. Communication Centers and Retention in Higher Education: Is There a Link? Chapter 2. Speaking Our Minds: Communication Centers and Critical ThinkingChapter 3. Communication Centers and Liberal Arts Education: Problems and Possibilities Associated with Cross-Disciplinary Engagements Chapter 4. The Communication Center: A Critical Site of Intervention for Student EmpowermentChapter 5. The Role Becomes Them: Examining Communication Center Alumni Experiences Part 2. Challenges to Today's CentersChapter 6. Ethics and the Communication Center: Chameleon or Tortoise? Chapter 7. The Blind Leading the Blind? An Ethnographic Heuristic for Communication CentersChapter 8. Learning to Tell What You Know: A Communication Intervention for Biology StudentsChapter 9. Using Theory and Research to Increase Student Use of Communication Center ServicesChapter 10. Focusing on Faculty: The Importance of Faculty Support to Communication Center SuccessPart 3. Alternative Models for Communication CentersChapter 11. Communication Center Ethos: Remediating Space, Encouraging CollaborationChapter 12. The Combined Centers Approach: How Speaking and Writing Centers Can Work TogetherChapter 13. Course Management Systems: Creating Alternative Avenues for Student Access of Communication CentersChapter 14. Virtual Communication Centers: A Resource for Building Oral CompetencyChapter 15. The Implementation of Computer-Mediated Communication in Communication CentersPart 4. New Directions in Consultant TrainingChapter 16. Technology Tutoring: Communication Centers Take the LeadChapter 17. Using Empathetic Listening to Build Client Relationships at the CenterChapter 18. Best Practices in Communication Center Training and Training Assessment

“Publication of findings pointing to the value of communication centers and speaking-intensive across-the-curriculum programs in higher education has, until now, failed to keep pace with the success of these endeavors. Professors Yook and Atkins-Sayre have assembled the finest minds and energies in this compilation to demonstrate the long-term and wide-ranging advantages available to schools that have embraced such learning enhancements. The wisdom shared in each of these essays reflects decades of experience, relentless testing of theory and revising practices to make possible the advancement of these initiatives so future practitioners will be better equipped to meet the particular needs of the institutions they serve. As enriching and long-overdue as this scholarship may be, the voices behind it would surely agree, that the difference revealed by students who have participated in these programs will be the finest legacy of the pioneering contributors to this essential text.”— Linda Hobgood, University of Richmond

“This volume offers a variety of interesting ideas that point to the power and promise of communication centers as they support communication across the curriculum. Directors and administrators will benefit from such discussions as how such centers enhance critical thinking, ways of conceptualizing the tutorial process, and the use of computer-mediated communication for virtual tutorials.” — Kathleen J. Turner

"The editors and contributors are prescient in identifying the need for this compendium of valuable essays. This edited volume on communication centers is a must-read for any faculty member or administrator involved in or considering a center. When we developed our center in the early nineties at the University of Colorado, we would have benefited immensely from access to such useful information."— Sherwyn Morreale, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs